Spark own a big share of the Southern Cross cable network. So international capacity is effectively free for them.

Although the Samknows testing might force their hand. Only a matter of time before a Stuff article appears, with a big headline saying. Spark internet the slowest according to new tests. And of course a comments section filled with complaints about slow WiFi.

There was a valid cost reason for why they pulled out in the first place.

This was many, many years ago. They still peer but only if the CDN or peering company has some heavy traffic - apparently even Cloudflare doesn't qualify for "heavy traffic"...

I'm always up for looking at new CDN partners but you're correct, last time we checked with Cloudflare the level of traffic would have needed to be an order of magnitude larger than it was to justify the investment of a directly connected CDN. That level will have gone up now as well - but obviously I can't disclose what those levels are publicly. More than happy to discuss it with someone from Cloudflare however if you have a contact and they are happy to sign an NDA.

Basically because peering is expensive in Australia with Telstra and Optus, Cloudflare serves free customers out of cheaper locations. Not sure if GZ is a free or paid customer of Cloudflare but might explain why it's being served out of Tokyo.

That was two years ago though, but I doubt much has changed over there.

I did notice when I was on Spark that my Unifi Controller, fronted by Cloudflare, was hitting Tokyo but I am a free customer. Same thing with @michaelmurfy's wordpress site at the time.